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Her life sentence means what it says on the tin: Khadija’s tariff will be completed upon death.

The now 31-year-old gave birth to Malaika while behind bars and, astonishingly, the school-age child still clings to her.

While children in her home city lead a happy, care-free existence, Malaika survives on soup and bread in a prison built to house 1,500 inmates, but is now overwhelmed with 6,000 of Pakistan’s most violent villains.

Malaika knows nothing more than the brutal, hand-to-mouth existence. She is institutionalised.

Khadija Shah with her daughter Malaika at Adiala Jail in Pakistan several years ago. (Image: Photo: Reprieve)

For the young girl, adapting to life in the outside world and the freedoms and joy of normal childhood would be difficult and traumatic.

She is not without companions in Adiala. Of the 400 woman banged up in the prison, around a quarter have children.

In a heart-rending interview four years ago, Khadija, arrested at Islamabad Airport after over 120 wraps of high-quality Afghan heroin were found in suitcases, said: “She likes to play with empty wrappers of food items.

"I usually try to keep our surroundings clean, too.”

Khadija Shah

Malaika’s story is the reverse of the furore surrounding Donald Trump’s treatment of Mexican families attempting to cross the Texan border. He has been accused of ripping children from their parents.

In the squalid confines of Adiala, little Malaika is serving the same sentence meted out to her mother. It is a draconian sentence for a heinous crime: a crime Khadija protests she did not knowingly commit.

She was asked to take cases back to the UK by a friend who insisted they contained bridal gowns for a family wedding.

Yesterday, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that Malaika remains with her mother.

A spokesman said: “Our staff continue to assist a British woman and her daughter in jail in Pakistan.

“FCO staff have visited Khadija and her daughter several times in the last few months, given the circumstances of their case.”

Both the FCO and international human rights group Reprieve have worked tirelessly to secure a solution, but have found compassion in short supply.

When just two months old, Reprieve highlighted the harrowing fact that Malaika had received no immunisations, despite measles and TB being detected in the maximum security prison.

Adiala Prison.

A lawyer for the organisation stated: “We are very much afraid she could die.”

In Pakistan, such concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Fears for the health of mother and unborn child were aired at a 2012 bail hearing in Rawalpindi – and received short shrift. The judge announced Khadija would be “better off” behind bars.

Reprieve’s legal team have gained one vital victory.

They’ve saved Khadija from the death sentence hanging over her. But the process of releasing the pair runs treacle slow.

The legal charity has publicly stated that Khadija’s ordeal underlines the Pakistan government failure to snare heroin mandarins: those who oversee the poppy crops and spread the deadly narcotic across the globe.

Instead, they deliver brutal punishment to mere pawns in the criminal industry.

That policing policy, Reprieve declared in 2014, undermines British government attempts to stem the tide of heroin from Pakistan.

"We have pumped over £12 million into Pakistan anti-drug programmes, yet are no nearer to winning the war. It is a fortune flushed down the pan.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, said: “In light of the excessively harsh sentences Pakistan hands down to vulnerable, exploited women such as Khadija, it seems hard to justify the millions in aid Britain has contributed to the country’s counter-narcotics operations.”

Khadija, a former pupil of Sheldon Heath Community School, was arrested at Benazir Bhutto International Airport in May, 2012.

She was six months pregnant and had her two children, aged four and five, with her.

They, too, were incarcerated, but allowed to return to Britain after four-and-a-half months. It is understood they are now in the care of a West Midlands relative.

Khadija has remained resolute in her insistence of a “set-up”.

She was on holiday and staying in an Islamabad guesthouse when asked to take suitcases crammed with clothes back to the UK.

Hidden in the folds of those garments was a heroin haul worth millions.

Shahzad Akbar, Khadija’s lawyer, said: “Khadija was asked to carry the bags by an individual who brought her to Pakistan and she has given the authorities his details.

“The anti-narcotics force seems only interested in picking up the carriers – women and children – and it isn’t going after the big fish.”

Those comments are echoed by Khadija’s mother, who told the BBC: “I know my daughter. She is a very innocent girl.”

We understand that Khadija and her daughter are in a cell shared by six other mothers.

They endure a regime that is harsh, even by the standards of prisons in the region.

Inmates’ survive on a diet comprised mostly of bread and soup, poor hygiene has seen illness, including a severe TB outbreak in 2012, spread like wildfire through blocks.

When just two-months-old, Reprieve highlighted the harrowing fact that Malaika had received no immunisations, despite measles being detected in the maximum security prison.

Shortly after her birth, Malaika was admitted to hospital with severe diarrhoea.

As the months progressed, Khadija’s sister revealed: “All day, Khadija has to carry Malaika in her arms as she is not given a pushchair or a clean place to put her baby down.

“Malaika has not yet been given any immunisations and Khadija feels awful about not being able to protect her daughter from all sorts of diseases.”

Malaika has survived. She is hardy, but she knows no other life than the existence eked out in Adiala’s rats’ maze of prison blocks.

Four years ago, Khadija was quoted in Vice magazine as attributing her day-to-day survival to her daughter.

“If Malaika was not here, I would be crazy because things are very hard,” she told Vice.

“She keeps me strong.

“I am still breastfeeding,” Khadija said.

“Every three months Prisoners Abroad give me some money for basic food items and Pampers for the baby, who I keep clean.”

Back in 2014, Reprieve warned: “The UK government must ensure that Khadija gets the urgent assistance she needs to appeal her sentence so that her baby doesn’t grow up behind bars.”

Four years on, that pitiful scenario continues to unfold.

Khadija continues to protest her innocence from behind bars in the sewer pit of humanity that is Adiala Prison, in Punjab’s Rawalpindi district.

Yet, despite robust efforts by our own government and civil liberty groups, mother and child still languish in one of Pakistan’s toughest correctional institutions, a prison built to hold 1,900 criminals, but now housing 6,000.

Of those 6,000, 400 are women. And of those 400, 100 have children with them.

Adiala houses the countries most violent villains, some awaiting execution.

In the past, it dealt with political prisoners. Now, it is the final destination for foot soldiers in the narcotics trade – many of them foreign.

They survive on a diet that consists mainly of bread and soup.

One former inmate told Pakistan news site Dawn.com: “The meat reeks of diesel rather than cooking oil. Drinking water is supplied through bore wells which makes the inmates susceptible to numerous diseases.”